Vanilla Extract

I found a great tutorial for making your own vanilla extract and decided to make some in the summer so it would have a good few months to "steep" to be perfect in time for Christmas. It was super easy and unlike what my parents thought vanilla bean really isn't that expensive (even here in Switzerland!) The vodka was the pricier ingredient as I didn't use the crappy stuff.


I also tried out Vanilla Sugar which literally was slicing the vanilla pods in half then putting them in with the sugar in a jam jar and shaking.. a lot!

Here are the bottles a few minutes after I made them. I only made three as I had to buy the empty bottles which did cost too much to buy more, but they are pretty!

Starting to steep properly after a few days..

And here are them now! I made cut labels to size out of white stickers and wrote on them. 

All ready to be gifted to an unsuspecting person!

Phone sleeves

As soon as I got my hands on a sewing machine last week I set to work for Christmas. When the holidays started I went into town and bought some nice fabric.

I can't show a lot of the things I made quite yet as most of them are being given at or after Christmas.. but I made some phone sleeves and gave them as early Christmas presents.


It was really simple! I used the same concept as the zippered pouches (again) but instead of the first step of sewing the outside fabric and lining to the zip, I just sewed them together.

First however I did iron some fusible fleece onto the outside fabric so it was protective. I've only just started using fusible fleece and already am hooked.. I don't think it's very common in the UK as I couldn't find it in any fabric stores so had to order it. It was quite expensive which is a bit of a pain.. and I've nearly run out already! After that it was simple sewing the outside fabric together then the lining and turning them the right way. 

I did have to measure the fabric against the phone I was making it for, but simple stuff! I do need to attempt some more challenging projects soon I think. I did do a top stitch over the seam between the lining and the outside material in a zig-zag stitch which I thought added that little something extra.

Also I got to use my nan's awesome singer sewing machine - passed down to her by my grandpa's mum!

Here are the finished cases - an iphone one for my sister and a blackberry one for a friend.

Banana Bread

Last week our house was overrun by bananas. My housemate Sarah has a Shabbat dinner most fridays and is on the JSoc committee so can take home any leftover food - which, last week, was a ton of over ripe bananas (the least ripe one is pictured!). 

We set about making banana bread and banana muffins. Sarah used a recipe from her recipe book and made about forty muffins with chocolate chips. She doubled her recipe and added two bags of chocolate chips.

I found this recipe on BBC Food and made banana bread - in a cake tin (that's all I have!) The main difference to Sarah's recipe was the use of caster sugar instead of brown sugar. There was little difference. I added one bag of chocolate chips as the final thing before putting it in the oven and it was so delicious. Despite the amount of banana baked goodies in our house it they didn't last longer than two days. HIGHLY recommended!

Cottage Pie

A few weeks ago I made a cottage pie for two. I just happened to have all the ingredients in the cupboard - it uses a lot of staples. I adapted the recipe my mum uses as well as a few things from other recipes I've seen - and here is mine.

250g steak Mince
1 large Onion
10 mushrooms
1 clove of garlic
Generous tbsp of Worcestershire sauce
200g chopped tomatoes
150ml beef stock
1 tbsp ketchup
1/4 cup red wine
Tabasco

3 large potatoes
50g salted butter
Milk
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tbsp cream cheese
Grated cheddar
Salt and pepper

Chop the onion and mushrooms well into small pieces. Saute the onions until soft then add the mushrooms. After the mushrooms have changed colour a bit add the steak mince and cook until brown. Finely chop or crush the garlic and add it to the pan to cook for a few more minutes. Add the Worcestershire sauce, chopped tomatoes, beef stock, ketchup and Tabasco and let simmer for 10 minutes stirring frequently. Finally add the red wine and let simmer for another twenty minutes or until most of the liquid has been evaporated and you are happy with the consistency.

At the same time cut the potatoes into quarters and boil until they are very soft to make mash (mine took about half an hour). Let steam cool for a few minutes then add the butter, milk, cream cheese, nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste. The cream cheese makes the mash very creamy (figures!) without having to add actual cream.

Put the meat mixture in the bottom of a oven dish and when cool, spoon the potato over it. Grate cheddar over the top. Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes and then place under the grill for 3-4 minutes to crisp up the top.

Delicious with peas!

Donna's Marees Birthday (first embroidery)

Apologies I haven't posted in a while.. the last couple weeks at uni were pretty busy but now I am FREE for a month! Wheee!


For Donna-Maree's birthday I made (in advance) a zippered pouch like the ones I made before (see previous posts) in purple, her favourite colour but also stitched her initials into the lining.

She was very happy with it :) Hopefully this Christmas I will have the time and the means to work on some bigger projects.. watch this space! 

Dylan's birthday - pencil case

The two people pictured in my first ever post are two of my favourite people in the world. I met them when I was in New Zealand for 6 months during my gap year last year. I stayed with Donna-Maree's sister when I was working in Wellington and we met and became close, while Dylan is the cutest and most polite kid you'll ever meet. He was 2 and a half when I met him and it has just been his fourth birthday! I can't believe it!


I started making his birthday gift in the summer as I had plenty of time then and I knew I wouldn't later on in the term to really think about something good. Dylan is at preschool at the moment but soon he will go to proper school.. and he will need a pencil case! (I decided). I got some great cars/trucks fabric in my heydey shop order so I made him a pencil case, using the same technique I used for the zippered pouches.

I put some pencils I bought with Dylan's name on them in the pencil case and managed to find loads of cool Cars (Disney) stationary! I also put in some cars stickers and cars tattoos (he really likes cars!) and included some sweets, of course!

This was his homemade card. Still can't figure out how to turn my pictures! Or at least I know how to do it but not why they still come up the wrong way here!

Here's the birthday boy opening up his gift!

I got an adorable thank you video from him sent to me today. He was very happy with his pressies :)

Egg Fried Rice

I make egg fried rice quite a lot so I thought I'd share my way of doing it. It's much healthier than ordering it and is super easy. I usually do everything by eye but I'll try to measure it this time so the recipe works.

Egg Fried Rice a la me
Serves 2 

Enough rice for 2
1-2 tbsp Soy Sauce
1/2-1 tsp Toasted sesame oil
2 Spring onions
1 Egg
Sprinkle of pepper

To begin, cook the rice according to instructions. Do not overcook! Drain and let the rice cool until at least luke warm. Warm spray oil or vegetable oil in a pan, then add rice. Fry for a minute, then add the soy sauce and sesame oil. Fry for a further three-four minutes, push to the side, then add the egg, immediately breaking the yolk and gently scrambling it. When the egg is no longer raw, start to mix with the rice and fry it all for a further two-three minutes. Sprinkle in the pepper to taste then finally add the finely chopped spring onions to fry for one more minute. Serve immediately.

With this dish I did honey-soy salmon (I can get awesome things like salmon on a student budget if I go to the store an hour before closing - good tip!). I mixed clear honey and soy with pinch of salt and a clove of garlic to taste and covered the salmon with that and finely chopped spring onions. I baked it for about 10 minutes (as I like my salmon rare) and it came out as a perfect accompaniment to my egg fried rice.

Possibly my best meal as a student to date?

Steak, Ale and Mushroom Pie

Pies are one of the great British foods. I've never attempted to make a pie before so I decided to try one out. I found multiple recipes for the type of pie I wanted to make, which are here, here, and here but they all had an ingredient I didn't have, so I decided to make one on my own accord with these three recipes as a fall-back. In the end these are the ingredients I used:

Chopped beef steak
Mushrooms
Ale
Onion
Vegetable oil
Worcestershire sauce
Tomato ketchup
Mustard
Gravy Granules
Plain flour
Store-bought shortcrust pastry
Salt and pepper

I started by cooking the onions in a generous amount of oil until softened. Then I added the chopped steak and cooked until just browned. The mushrooms went in next with a bit more oil and they were cooked a few minutes. Next I added half the bottle of ale. It fizzed a lot! I stirred consistently. I added a dash of Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup and mustard according to my taste, and then the a bit more ale after it had simmered for a few minutes. Then I added some boiling water and gravy granules to thicken it up a bit and salt and pepper to taste. I let it simmer and ending up adding all the ale by adding a little at a time, and let it simmer some more. Keep testing the meat - I wanted to get it tender. I did add a few separate spoonfuls of flour to thicken the sauce further, and simmered in between adding it.

I didn't have a pie dish so I had to make do with a quiche dish wrapped in foil as otherwise it would have leaked out the bottom! It was a bit shallow but worked out fine in the end.

When I was happy with the thickness of the sauce and tenderness of the meat I poured it into my makeshift pie dish then covered it with store-bought shortcrust pastry. I had to trim to size and cut a small hole in the top so air could escape. This is my pie in the oven! I baked it for about 40 minutes - until I thought the pastry looked cooked enough.

Perfect accompaniment - peas! The pie was delicious, especially with some hot gravy poured over it.

This didn't last long.